


Ladder's Reach

by casual_distance



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Handcuffed Together, M/M, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casual_distance/pseuds/casual_distance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They spend hours climbing and the only thing to show for it is exhaustion and yet more ladder to climb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ladder's Reach

Dean woke up slowly, head pounding, eyes burning, pain shooting through his shoulder and down his arm. He groaned and rolled over- or attempted to. He jerked to a stop, his arm pulling sharply causing more pain to radiate down its length and across his side.

“Dean, stop moving,” Cas growled.

“What the fuck?” Dean gasped.

The pain let up and Dean’s arm dropped back down against his side. He opened his eyes and squinted down his body. Between the darkness of the room and his blurred vision, Dean couldn’t make out anything, so he dropped his head back down onto the floor and closed his eyes. After a moment, he said, “Cas, I could use some of that healing mojo of yours.”

“I’m… unable, Dean.”

“What? Why?” Dean’s attempt to sit up was halted by another shock of pain. When he came back to himself, he heard Cas speaking.

“...to this large device, and there are sigils inhibiting my powers.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed.”

Dean’s chuckle turned into a groan. “I’m just gonna lay here, then.”

“Dean.”

Dean ignored him and lay there, feeling the pounding of pain through his body slowly give away to awareness of his situation. As his senses came back online, Dean could feel the weight of a metal cuff around his wrist, the cold of the floor against his back, the spots on his body that hurt in a way that indicated he’d be sporting some ugly bruises in a few days. Eventually, Dean eased back into full awareness and he blinked open his eyes to take in his surroundings.

Dim light filtered through the room, though Dean could not find the source. The room was large and open with smooth walls and no visible windows. There were no light fixtures that Dean could see as he squinted through the bars of his cell into the gloom. Cas’s cell was next to his, the two of them separated by a single set of bars. Dean glanced up to see that they were not caged completely. The tops of their cells were open, the bars that enclosed them ending at a horizontal crossbar.

Cas stood next to the bars separating their cells, his arm raised. Dean frowned.

He rolled over and sat up slowly. He pushed himself to his feet and froze as a wave of dizziness overcame him. When the dizziness ebbed, Dean opened his eyes to find Cas watching him carefully.

“Are you alright, Dean?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean answered, automatically. “What are you doing?”

Cas still held his hand up in the air. He tilted his head at Dean, squinting slightly. He looked up, and Dean followed suit. He couldn’t see much in the darkness of the room, but what he could see was a large box-like thing suspended above the crossbar between their cells. Two lengths of chain stretched down from it and into their cages. Dean lifted his hand and the chain falling into his cage rattled. Dean made a noise in the back of his throat and followed Cas’s chain to the wrist he held above his head.

“Why is yours so short?”

Cas gave him an exasperated look. “As I said earlier, we appear to be connected.” He pulled his hand down and the chain around Dean’s wrist jerked up in response. 

Dean made a face at him. “I have a head injury, man. Cut me some slack if I don’t listen to your rambling.”

“Dean, this is not the time-” Cas cut himself off and glared at Dean. “We are chained together and there are sigils inhibiting my powers. We need to figure out how to escape from here.”

“Where’s Sam?”

Cas shook his head. “I have not heard or seen him. I don’t know where he is.”

“Do we know who put us here?” Dean asked as he turned to look around the room outside his bars again.

“No. We’ve been alone.”

“How’d we get here anyway?”

Cas was silent for a moment. “I am uncertain. I remember a flash of light, and when I woke up I was here.”

Dean turned back to look at Cas. “You were unconscious?”

Cas frowned. “I didn’t feel like I was. I was simply here.”

“Huh.” Dean returned to his examination of the room. “I don’t see any doors.”

“Look up.”

Dean did. The room stretched up, fading into darkness. “What the hell?”

“I believe we are in an old silo of some kind. There is a ladder coming down from the roof over here.” Dean’s arm jerked as Cas moved his own arm to point. “Apologies.” Cas shot him a contrite look and pointed with his other arm. Dean looked and saw the ladder Cas indicated.

“Okay.” Dean frowned in the direction of the ceiling. “How did they get us in here if the door is on the roof or whatever?”

“I have been wondering that myself,” Cas answered. “I believe, given the way I was not really rendered unconscious, that we were moved by magic.”

“You think we tripped a booby trap?”

Cas squinted at him for a moment. “Perhaps.”

“Huh. Well, how do we get out of here then?” Dean raised his hand to look at the cuff around his wrist. He twisted it around, surprised to see that there was no lock. He tugged it experimentally to see if he could squeeze his hand through, but it was a tight fit around his wrist. Dean doubted even breaking his hand would let him squeeze through, and even if it did, Dean would need both hands to climb the ladder.

“Do you think we could find the sigils and break them?” Dean asked as he dropped his hand.

“Unfortunately not.” Cas grimaced. “I had hoped they were on the bars of my cell, but that was not the case. I doubt they are within my reach.”

“Then they probably aren’t within mine either, so I guess that’s a no-go.” Dean considered his cuff again. “There’s no lock to pick,” he mused. “If we got here by magical means does that mean we can escape by magical means?”

Cas squinted down at his own cuff, running his finger along the edge in consideration. “Perhaps,” he allowed, “but we have no means to perform anything magical.”

“Not until Sam shows up.” Dean peered up at the box the chains came from. He jiggled his wrist in consideration as he looked at the top of the cage. “Hey, do you think you could give me a boost up?”

Cas frowned at him. Dean slotted his fingers together to make a cup from his hands and mimed lifting something up. Cas mimicked him and held his hands out toward Dean. Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed Cas’s hands to pull them through the bars and then pushed them lower, lifting his foot up to slot it into place. 

“Now lift up,” he instructed, reaching overhead for the top of the cage. Cas obeyed and Dean managed to pull himself up enough to rest his stomach on the bar. He wiggled around, attempting to bring his leg up. Below him Cas made a disgruntled noise.

“Perhaps I should-”

“Cas. Shut up,” Dean grunted. Cas fell silent, but Dean could feel his disbelieving glare.

Dean wriggled around some more, shifting his weight and then his position until he was able to get a foot hooked, then a knee, and then his hip. He lay along the bar, which was narrower than he thought, but not so narrow that he couldn’t manage it. 

As long as he didn’t fall.

Dean sucked in a deep breath and used his toes and hands to scoot a little closer to the box. He craned his head around, trying to check it out, but the angle was difficult. He lowered his head and considered. Finally Dean reached out and grabbed his chain.

“Hey, Cas, provide a little resistance for me, will you?”

Cas’s chain jingled, then went taut. Dean shifted his hand upward on his own chain and then began putting his weight on it, slowly to begin with, and then more firmly once Cas matched his pull. Using the chain to balance himself, Dean managed to get himself to his feet.

“Dean.” Cas sounded worried, and Dean waved him off, concentrating on his balance. Once he felt- well, not secure, but as close as- Dean released the chain and ran his hands over the box. He feared at first that it would be solid like the shackles, but Dean’s fingers found a seam and then hinges. Dean hissed in triumph and followed the seam around to a latch. There was no lock, thankfully, and Dean was able to manipulate the latch into opening. Unluckily, the door opened against him and Dean could see nothing without moving.

Dean stood for a moment, clutching the box, and considered the best way to get around. Eventually he settled on squatting down, then sitting sideways on the crossbar. Behind him Dean heard Cas moving and glanced back to see Cas had shifted below him, arms held up as if to catch him, face drawn tight.

“If you fall, Dean, fall this way, please,” he said when he saw Dean looking at him.

“Sure thing, Cas,” Dean answered with a roll of his eyes.

Dean pushed the door closed and latched it again. He stretched a foot out, hooked it around a pole further down and shuffled sideways. He released his other foot, bringing it close to his body and then wrapped it around the pole below him. He repeated the awkward side-ways shuffle until he could turn and look at the box. Cas moved to stand under him again.

Dean opened the door and grinned. The chains were hooked together with a pulley system. Refusing to think anything about luck on principle, Dean reached into the box and began working the chains free of the pulleys. It was a complicated exercise; the chain was considerably longer than the length that had been allotted to Dean and Cas in their cells. Dean fed the chain into Cas’s cell and eventually had freed the last of it from the pulleys.

“Alright, Cas. Clear the way.” Dean swung one foot over the bar and then the other, hissing in discomfort on the straddle, and then jumped down in the space Cas had cleared.

“Now we just gotta scale the outside bars,” Dean said, pointing, “and see about getting out of here.”

Cas hefted Dean over the bars first. Dean hauled the chain over and then gave Cas a boost, grunting as Cas proved heavier than he looked. Cas dropped down next to him gracefully. Dean muttered “Showoff” under his breath and grinned at Cas’s glare. 

Cas wound the chain around his neck, leaving loops dangling down his chest. Dean eyed him warily, but Cas seemed unperturbed by the weight.

Under the ladder, Dean peered up and heaved a sigh. “Let’s do this. Hopefully I won’t get to the top and then fall and die.”

“Now is not the time to be testing the limits of fate, Dean,” Cas said dryly. Dean laughed as he hooked his foot onto the bottom rung, took a deep breath, and began to climb.

He didn’t know how long he climbed before the exhaustion began to weigh on him. The chain on his wrist dragged his arm down, and it began to shake. He stopped, hooked an elbow through a rung and copied Cas by draping the chain around his neck in an effort to ease the weight. Cas waited silently, but Dean could feel the heat of his gaze. He began climbing again.

Shifting the chain helped, but eventually exhaustion took over his whole body and Dean found himself slowing down, shifting his grip from the rungs of the ladder to the sides, pausing to hook his arms through while he rested his head against the ladder. He tried his best not to look down, not to imagine what would happen if he slipped, but he felt his grip weakening. His arms and legs trembled.

“Dean.”

“I’m going, Cas,” Dean lifted his head and prepared to climb, taking a deep breath and holding it. A hand on his ankle stopped him.

“You need to rest.”

“Don’t see how that’s possible right now, Cas.”

Cas was silent for a moment, then breathed out heavily. “I have an idea, but you will have to trust me.”

Dean closed his eyes and, after a moment, nodded. He said out loud, “Okay, Cas.”

Cas hesitated a moment. He began to climb, putting a hand against Dean’s leg when Dean started to shift with him. Dean swallowed heavily when he realized Cas was climbing up around him. Cas set his feet on the same rung as Dean’s, Dean shifting his inward as he realized what was happening. Cas gripped the outside of the ladder, bracketing Dean with his body.

“You can rest against me,” Cas murmured. Dean sucked in a deep breath and leaned back tentatively. The chains dug into his back, but Cas took his weight with ease. Dean shifted down, resting his shins and knees against the rungs of the ladder. The bars dug into his legs, the chains into his back, and he couldn’t quite convince himself to let go. He leaned against Cas, stiff and uncomfortable.

“You have to trust me, Dean. I will not let you fall.”

Dean rolled his shoulders. He sucked in a deep breath. A second one. He forced himself to relax. He set his head against Cas’s shoulder, trying to ignore the way Cas’s face turned toward him, the hot exhale of his breath against Dean’s neck. He let go with one hand. Cas didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He let go with the other hand. Cas’s nose touched his cheek- a brief, fleeting touch that had Dean turning his face toward Cas before he realized what he was doing. He stopped, shifted his head, and relaxed fully.

It was uncomfortable, but Cas was solid against him and exhaustion dragged Dean into unconsciousness. 

When Dean woke, it was to his face pressed against Cas’s neck, Cas’s arm around his waist, and a stiffness in his body. He shifted, groaning as he neck protested. Cas’s arm tightened around his waist to keep him from moving too much.

“Dean,” he rumbled against Dean’s back.

Abruptly, Dean remembered where he was, hands shooting out to catch on the rungs of the ladder. Cas waited until he’d lifted his weight away before letting go of Dean and adjusting his grip on the ladder. Dean rolled his neck and shoulders, trying to ease the stiffness and aches that had settled in.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long. How do you feel?”

Dean paused to consider. He was hungry, his stomach roiling angrily, but the trembling in his limbs had eased. “Better, I guess.” He didn’t wait to hear Cas’s response but started climbing again.

They climbed in silence for what felt like hours.

Cas broke the silence once only to say, “The wards are weakening.”

Dean grunted and kept climbing.

He had to rest twice more, letting Cas bear his weight, his exhaustion, waking each time to find he’d turned his face into Cas’s, to find them breathing in time, to Cas’s arm around his waist. 

The third time, Dean didn’t move immediately. Cas waited patiently.

“How close are we?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. We are coming close to the end of the wards, but I cannot tell how far away we are.”

“Does it seem like it’s taking longer than it should?”

“I do not know where we are,” Cas hedged. He was silent until Dean shifted to turn a narrow-eyed glare on him. Cas sighed and kept his focus on the ladder in front of them. “It is likely the individual who put us here has used magic to extend the duration of the climb.” He glanced at Dean. “We _are_ making progress.”

Dean grunted in irritation and hefted himself away from Cas. He continued to climb.

Dean lost track of time. He focused only on the rungs in front of him, on putting one hand above the other. He lost himself to the rhythm of the climb, and was startled when Cas made a noise in the back of his throat.

“We’re outside the wards.”

Dean glanced over his shoulder at Cas. “Does that mean we can get out of here?”

Cas looked up at him, smiling slightly. “Yes. Don’t move.”

He climbed up around Dean again, slid an arm around his waist, and suddenly they were in open air, the ground coming up fast to meet them. Dean shouted, jerking his feet up, wrapping an arm around his face in reaction to the bright light.  
They landed heavily, Dean’s body jarring painfully. Cas’s arm slid from his waist and Dean collapsed on the ground with a heavy groan.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he moaned into the grass. “What the fuck.”

He rolled over onto his back and squinted up at the sky until his vision adjusted to being back in full light. Cas leaned over him to stare down at him. Dean blinked up at him, and Cas’s mouth curled up into an amused smile. Dean flicked him off and draped an arm over his face.

“Fuck, I have to pee,” he groaned, forcing himself to his feet and stumbling to a small clump of trees. He looked around as he relieved himself, frowning at the unfamiliar surroundings. He glanced over his shoulder at Cas as he shook himself off and tucked himself away.

“Where are we?”

Cas squinted around the clearing they were in. “I am uncertain.” He pointed. “I can sense a city that direction.”

“Far?”

“Not very.”

“Let’s go then.” Dean started walking, not looking back to check that Cas was following. Of course he was.

He didn’t offer to fly them there to Dean’s mixed relief and irritation. Still, even walking, it only took an hour to hit the town, and Dean was relieved to see a diner right at the edge. He headed for it, pleased to spot the Impala in the parking lot near the door.

He gave her a pat, smiling happily to see she was unharmed. Inside the diner, Sam sat by himself in the far corner, back to the door. Dean slapped him on the shoulder and slid into the booth.

“’Sup, Sammy?” he asked, pulling a menu from behind the napkin dispenser and opening it. “I’m fucking starving.”

Sam jumped and gaped at him. “Dean, where the hell have you _been_?”

Cas slid into the booth beside Dean. “We were trapped in a… booby trap?” He cast a questioning look at Dean.

Dean laughed. “Sounds ‘bout right.”

“How’d you get out? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Managed to get past the sigils hijacking Cas’s mojo and he got us out of there.” Dean pointed a finger at Sam and glared at him. “No more questions. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten.” He flagged down a waitress and ordered two burgers, fries, and a milkshake.

Sam and Cas both watched him eat, so he chewed with his mouth open. He spent the drive to the motel explaining to Sam what had happened. Sam, it turned out, had managed to find the witch and gank it while Dean and Cas were trapped. Cas hummed thoughtfully at that and posited that perhaps they hadn’t escaped the sigils, but instead felt them fail when the witch died. 

Dean chose to not think about that and the fact that they could still have been trapped. Instead he forced them both to shut up and collapsed into a dusty motel bed, grateful that he’d finally get to rest on something other than chains and ladder rungs. Still, as he closed his eyes, he couldn’t help but miss the white-noise of Cas’s breathing and the press of an arm around his waist.

**Author's Note:**

> [on tumblr](http://casualstories.tumblr.com/post/123224647088/ladders-reach)


End file.
